ACTIVITIES BEFORE THE WAR 45
perts and enabled the population to study the application of improved
 farming methods adapted to local conditions. Such model
institutions, of which there were sometimes several in one district,
were established by about one-third of all the district zemstvos.
Experimental stations. These were as a rule organized by the
zemstvos, and more rarely by the Government or by agricultural
societies, aided by the zemstvos. At the stations tests were made and
experiments conducted with various methods of cultivation, varieties
of seeds, special crops, etc. Thirty-seven out of the forty-three zemstvo
 provinces maintained 159 such establishments. During the few
years preceding the War the. zemstvos, as well as the agricultural
societies aided by the zemstvos, maugurated a system of control
stations to examine seeds and fertilizers. In 1914, seventeen zemstvo
provinces had a total of twenty-five control stations. The zemstvos
also began to pay attention to the high percentage of impurities in
the seed grain used by the peasants, and the result was that the zemstvo
 provinces were soon covered with a regular network of graincleansing
 stations.
Improved breeding of draught animals and cattle was greatly
promoted by the zemstvos importing special breeds of foreign as
well as domestic sires (stallions, bulls, and even rams and boars)
and establishing breeding stations. The government studs maintained
 at various places throughout Russia were, as a rule, heavily
subsidized by the zemstvos.
The activities of the zemstvos in the agricultural field were so far
reaching and presented so many different aspects that it is impossible
 for us to enumerate them all in this chapter. We must confine
ourselves to emphasizing here the part played by the zemstvos in the
promotion of agricultural knowledge. They opened agricultural
schools, both elementary and secondary, and some of these (for instance,
 the school maintained by the Alexandrovsk district zemstvo
in the province of Ekaterinoslav) were known throughout Russia as
model institutions. It may be said without fear of exaggeration that
entire new branches of agriculture grew up, if not on the direct
initiative of the zemstvos, at least in a considerable measure thanks
to the work done by them. The grass cultivation in the provinces of
Moscow and Tver, the butter-making industry in the province of
Vologda, and other such innovations, are instances of this.
The zemstvo stores of agricultural machinery, implements, and